Expressions of my obsessions with the fascinations of Natural Kansas by Ken Brunson

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Curious Fawn

Its a baby deer, a fawn, coming up to inspect us hiding in the darkness of the living room. Is it abandoned? Should we take it and try to take care of it? Take it to someone who can? The answer to all of these questions is NO NO NO. But most people cannot stand to hear "NO." The nurturing instinct is so strong that even usually rational people will do silly things. In this case, it would be the worst thing for this young deer. The truth is, this deer is obviously in good health. It has a couple small bumps on its head, the sites for emergence of the small, first year antler knobs for this "button" buck. And, its mother, the doe, is about 50 yards away watching from the cover of plum bushes. But most people feel they have to "save" this fawn. This is another manifestation of people becoming urbanized and losing any semblance of nature's reality. Unfortunately, most people get their "reality" from unreal portrayals by TV, movies and other sources. This fawn, our "pet" yard fawn, will be best raised by its own mother. To take it in and "help" it survive would mean that it would habituate to humans. When it grows up with really sharp, pointy antlers, it would someday turn on some human, of which it is unafraid because of its upbringing by a human, and will try to gore that human because its hormones are raging. Or it will succumb to disease more easily because of some kind of confinement. Or it could possibly convey some disease from one area to where ever it is delivered for "saving." The truth is the hardest thing for people to accept and it is never truer when it comes to the insatiable "need" to save some child of nature--a nature which is indifferent to compassion. Nature simply is what it is, the natural order of animals to implement their genetic code and behavior--one which includes birth, life and death. Our interference in this process many times leads to misplaced passion and sad results. So, we leave our own "pet" fawn to its own mother and will hopefully watch it grow up as a wild part of the Kansas Outback.